Ashley Judd Will Come Early Morning

Ashley Judd will star in Come Early Morning, a coming-of-age story set in a rural small town, says Production Weekly. The project will be actress Joey Lauren Adams’ directorial debut.

The film, also written by Adams, centers on a woman in her 30s who is beginning to come to terms with her selfish and prickly relatives, her own self-worth, and her search for meaning.

Shooting will take place in Adams’ hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas at the end of April.

Wizard World, a three-day comic book and pop culture gathering, comes to the Long Beach Convention Center. The show features comic books, toys, anime, movies, magna and video games and includes scheduled appearances by Avi Arad, Chris Evans, Stan Lee, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith, Joss Whedon, Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George and more. 2-8 p.m., 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. March 21. Long Beach Convention Center, Long Beach Performing Arts Center, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach. $25 one-day pass, $45 weekend pass and $150 VIP pass. Visit www.wizarduniverse.com for ticket information.

Syndrome Recited Dogma: “Apparently, what they do is I think they took certain audio clips from movies and they listened to them and look at the drawings and figure out what goes best. And I think, according to Brad Bird, a lot of it had come from Dogma. I guess it was that sort of evilness, that kind of energy that they liked in Dogma so they applied that to the renderings of the character and thought it was a good fit and then called me and offered me the role, which was very flattering and of course I did it.”

The Syndrome/Dogma Footage is Buried: Not even Jason Lee saw Pixar’s Dogma tests. “I didn’t get a script and I didn’t interact with any of the other actors. It was just me, Brad Bird and the dialogue. And the microphones and him telling me, ‘Okay, now in this scene you’re in your big lair and it kind of looks like this. Here are some drawings.’ Go. I had no idea what the movie was going to look like.

We’re pretty much sold out. We’ve just got some seats we were holding for guests of presenters that we’re putting up for sale now, as we don’t need as many comp seats as we initially thought we might.

Caution: Over-use of the word “We” above.

Truth be told, I, too, am pretty surprised that we took as long as we did to sell out. With the other Vulgarthons, we sold out within four to six hours of tickets going on sale. Hell, even the UK and Toronto Q&A’s sold out in a little over a day of sales. And we never advertised the sale of tickets for any of those events anywhere else but right here on the site.

But this West Coat Vulgarthon took much, much longer than usual to sell out. We’ve been scratching our heads over the whole affair, really. It might’ve had something to do with the fact that it’s the Monday after Easter. The steep ticket price (and even steeper price of travel/hotel for the out-of-towners) might’ve kept some at bay. The fact that it’s being held in L.A. and not Red Bank might’ve been a factor.

It was weird. I’d be worried that maybe our audience is dwindling, but there’s no evidence of that anywhere else but with the slower sales of this event (an event which eventually sold out, too, anyway). T’was a real head-scratcher.

Regardless, all’s well now. Had to do a little hardcore pimping (you might’ve noticed that during stuff like the Alice and Film Freak radio show appearances), but we got all the asses for all the seats, and will have a nice, packed house come the day of the show.

So thanks to all those who bought early, and thanks to all those who bought late. It may have taken a bit longer, but we eventually packed the Dome.

“I wrote it. ‘Man About Town’ is actually a movie I wrote for Steven Spielberg to direct and I developed it with Steven Spielberg and he decided not to do it and I went out and did it myself. And it’s a movie about a talent agent who’s wife has an affair with his most important client and-it’s really a movie about a man who’s wife cheats and has to figure out a way to forgive her cause he’s in love with her and he can’t just leave her. He just has to figure out some path to forgiveness and he’s very good in the movie. The client is Adam Goldberg and John Cleese is in it and Gina Gershon. I’m in it; I’m the Jew agent.”

The movie may or may not resuscitate Affleck’s career, but Binder isn’t worried. “I feel it cause I’m not stupid. But I don’t feel pressure on myself. Plus, he delivered. When we started working on the movie, he wasn’t quite in the situation he was in. We started working on this movie back in September and we committed to it last March. And ‘Jersey Girl’.

I’m not gonna-there’s just too much actor of the moment thing going on with the studios. I think he’s a good actor; Ben’s a bad actor in bad movie and a good actor in good movie and who isn’t. Some people are lucky they don’t do that many bad movies. But also, if you look at the choices Ben’s made, to work with John Woo, to work with Marty Brest who I would do anything to work with Marty Brest, to work with Kevin Smith who he had worked with before, and the ;Surviving Christmas; script was great, I wanted to direct it. I didn’t get the job. So he made choices I understand, they just didn’t work out. And I also think that he had a bit of a backlash. And listen, the guy won the Oscar at 24; he’s 32. He needed to stumble and he’s not going anywhere; this guy is going to be around for a long time. He learned a lot from the last 2 years; trust me. He loved this movie and he wanted to go with us up to Sundance. I’m more worried about my career than his.”

PREMIERE EPISODE TO AIR FREE ON THE WEB AT AOL.COM AND ON AOL SERVICE FOR ONE WEEK WITH WEEKLY PREVIEWS AND SIMULCAST OF SEASON FINALE TO FOLLOW ‘PROJECT GREENLIGHT’ PREMIERES TUESDAY, MARCH 15 AT 9:00 PM ET/PT

NEW YORK — March 10, 2005 — As the acclaimed filmmaking documentary series “Project Greenlight” debuts on Bravo on Tuesday, March 15, America Online will offer the entire premiere episode free on the Web simultaneously with its West Coast broadcast airing at 9:00 PM, PT/12:00AM, ET, as well as throughout the week. The episode will be available to view online through the AOL.com Web site (aol.com/television) and the AOL service (AOL Keyword: Television). Throughout the season, America Online will also post weekly episodic clips from the series, and will simulcast the season finale on May 10.

“Online streaming is the perfect medium to drive consumer awareness and sampling simultaneously,” said Jason Klarman, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Bravo. “It complements our overall efforts to drive viewers to the premiere, transforming the content into the perfect buzz-making vehicle.”

“We are always looking for creative new ways to extend and enhance the viewing experience for our substantial online audience, and this ‘Project Greenlight’ initiative is a terrific example of this effort,” said Patricia Karpas, Vice President and General Manager, AOL Television. “By offering on-demand access to the premiere and finale, along with weekly clips of each episode, we can provide Web users the opportunity to engage with this acclaimed program even if they’ve missed it on TV. We’re pleased to support the ‘Project Greenlight’ mission of discovering young filmmakers and to celebrate the winners of this prestigious challenge.”

“Project Greenlight” gives aspiring filmmakers access to independent filmmaking through an online community, a film, and a television documentary series. “Project Greenlight” holds a contest where an amateur writer and an amateur director get to make an original film together. The documentary series shows the entire filmmaking process, from the selection of the script, through production and editing, to the film’s release. First time director John Gulager will direct the winning script written by screenwriters Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan. Horror guru Wes Craven (”A Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Scream”) has joined on to produce the film, “Feast.” The series, which will air on Bravo for the first time, consists of nine, one-hour episodes.

I appreciate that because it kind of makes up for every chick who ever said I had a small dick. Starting with my mom, working right up to my wife. I’m gonna take a few minutes cause this is the only award I’m ever going to win I assure you. And I’m sorry if I’m a little sweaty but I tend to do that when I… breathe. I don’t know if you all watched the Golden Globes a few years ago but Marsellus Wallace won a Golden Globe – Ving Rhames – for this TV movie that was… he played Don King. And when he got the award he didn’t feel like he was really worthy of the award so he passed it off to somebody he felt was more deserving and that was Jack Lemmon, who was in a TV movie that year. In the spirit of that I would like to pass this award to somebody who I thought did an amazing film this year and went unrecognised by the Academy and he’s just a fantastic guy, and that dude is a hero of mine. I would like to give my award to Quentin Tarantino.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait. I would like to, but I’m not going to. Because fuckin’ Quentin’s doing really well. He won a Palme D’or, he’s got an Oscar and shit like that, he’s got acclaim. I made Gigli2 people, so I’m fucking keeping this award, to be honest with you. Because you don’t know how many editors at Empire Magazine I had to suck off to get this award. You wouldn’t think a movie magazine would have so many editors but they do and oddly enough most of them are guys. And it was always the same, it was like ‘Oh it ain’t going to suck itself fatty!’ You know. ‘hurry along so we can talk about Revenge of the Sith.’ So I’m takin’ it for me. Because… that’s a lot of cock.

This is especially meaningful to me because it comes from part of the British press and the British press the last time I was here wasn’t very kind to me. I had released the most independent I ever made, a low budget effort called Jersey Girl. And you know they kind of went after the film, particularly… I don’t know if you all read the papers here but in a paper, I believe it’s called The Mirror, there’s a column by some writers called the 3am girls. The 3am girls kind of teed off on the film a little bit. And just so I can be specific and I don’t misquote (pulls out clipping) – because the press can do that – I’m going to read you a little something that they wrote. They were talking about the fact that Ben Affleck couldn’t make it over to promote the movie and stuff so the essential point of the article is Ben lit out because the movie’s terrible. They wrote ‘the film in which Ben and J-Lo play lovers with a baby on the way proved to be a box office disaster in the States. It’s a shame Ben has pulled out because it’s obvious the film needs all the publicity it can get. Says an insider.’ An Insider, not, you know, me or fuckin’ somebody involved with the film, an insider essentially. So, I ran into one of the 3am girls the next day at the premiere and I was just ‘look, not for nothing but you’re quoting anonymous sources, why don’t you talk to someone who knows about it. I’m not telling you how to do your job but this shit’s kind of hurtful to read.’ And she was like ‘right, right, you’ve really turned me around here. So this is what she wrote the next day. She called me ‘the movie’s director, fat, bearded, hobbit lookalike Kevin Smith.’ Now, many of you probably aren’t aware but I have a weight problem, so if you call me fat and bearded, alright, you’re on point, that’s accurate. But calling me hobbit lookalike? Come on man. Cause, if I look like a hobbit, this bitch looked like a fucking orc, I assure you.

Revenge is awfully sweet. But the thing that bothered me most was that the article said ‘insiders say’ which is a little vague and you could just , really, make that up and attribute it to anybody. So in the spirit of that I’ve spoken to some insiders about the 3am girls. Now I don’t’ know if this is accurate but insiders say that for one Euro, not a pound, for one Euro, you can take a fuckin’ brick in their mouths. If that makes print tomorrow, an insider heard it.

I just want to thank a few people while I’m up here, ’cause the last ten years of my life wouldn’t be possible without a lot of cats, some of them mean the world to me and some of them don’t. Of course I want to thank Alan Rickman and Jason Mewes and Matt Damon because they’re here. All the other people who you’ve seen in the clip, I thank them too. I want to thank Scott Mosier, my producer, but without that dude I can’t do anything. Mewes, you get a special thank you cause you’re an inspiration and you’re one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met and without you I would just be the fat guy standing there in movies. So thank you. I thank Empire magazine, I thank everyone who came out tonight, but most importantly this award doesn’t really go to Quentin, I’m not going to keep it, this award goes to my wife. Thank God she’s into fat dudes. So I’m going to scratch it out and write chubby chaser award and I’m going to present it to her. Because I love her to death and without her, you know, it would be kind of hard to slog through some of the bad press. And even when I read a 3am girls column about myself she said ‘you know, you’re not hobbit-like.’ Leaving the fat and bearded part there. But Jennifer I love you to death, thanks so much. Y’all know I’m getting so laid tonight because of that. Thank you, goodnight.

Just got back from the Empire Awards where I received the Independent Spirit Award (Matty got Best Actor for “Bourne” and Quentin got “Icon of the Decade”)! Was a great night, at which not only did I get to mock and deride the apparently-reviled-by-all 3am Girls, but I re-met the same one who wrote the shit about me last June. And get this: she had the temerity to say to me “You should pick your targets more carefully.” She actually had the nuts to play the role of the wounded lamb – as if she doesn’t shred people in that dopey column everyday. Fucking spec-tacular. I said “Sucks being on the receiving end, doesn’t it?”

Anyway, I’ll be talking about that and other stuff on the Phil Jupitus show tomorrow (Monday) morning at 7am. Gonna hang out for two hours one last time before I head off to Heathrow and back home. So tune in, folks, and hear all about the awards and other closing thoughts on the London trip.

BBC 6. 7am to 9am. Tune in.

Matt Damon, Julie Delpy and Shaun of the Dead emerge victorious

It may have been a sleepy Sunday night in March for most of you but for a host of lucky stars and many assembled guests, tonight was something far more exciting. It was the 10th annual Sony Ericsson Empire Awards and anyone who’s anyone was present to watch these coveted gongs handed out.

Nestled in the great hall of London’s Guildhall, this year’s Empire Awards was a step up from the usual digs with Hogwarts-esque crypts and passageways populated by stars in shimmering ballgowns as they laughed, held court and knocked back magnums of free champagne. When the show kicked off, introduced by this year’s host, the remarkably funny Johnny Vaughn, it was with much anxious anticipation that the best of last year’s filmmakers and performers waited to find out if they had been judged worthy by the most important jury of all – the Empire readers.

The Bourne Supremacy emerged as unstoppable as its amnesiac protagonist with Matt Damon sweeping the Best Actor gong for his arse-kicking turn as Jason Bourne and Paul Greengrass joining his star to accept the award for Best Film. On the British front Shaun of the Dead stormed to the fore with an extremely well-deserved win for Best British Film. Director Edgar Wright was joined by stars Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield and producer Nira Park as he took to the stage to accept the gong and shower heartfelt thanks upon the Empire readership.

Julie Delpy proved a popular choice, taking Best Actress for Before Sunset, while perennial fave Kate Winslet landed Best British Actress once again, this time for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Dead Man’s Shoes’ Paddy Considine took Best British Actor while Matthew Vaughn completed Blighty’s winners with a nod for Best British Director. Vaughn couldn’t be there in person (though he did turn up later on) but sent his missus, the lovely Claudia Schiffer, to accept the honour in his stead.

Sam Raimi – absent in body but not in spirit – took best director for Spider-Man 2 but the most popular win saw young Freddie Highmore rise above Zach Braff, Bryce Dallas Howard, Matthew Vaughn and Sienna Miller to scoop Best Newcomer for Finding Neverland.

The evening’s special awards saw Pixar, Working Title, Kevin Smith (who managed to fit more cock jokes into his acceptance speech than any previous winner) and the inimitable Quentin Tarantino duly honoured for their contributions to cinema.

And as the lucky winners lovingly cradled their eight-by-ten pieces of machine-engraved perspex, everyone retired to the buffet room to feast themselves on the free food. Sadly for some they left their goodie bags unattended and came back to find them stolen by sticky-fingered opportunists but what’s a few bottles of shampoo and a couple of DVDs between friends?

Best Newcomer – Freddie Highmore – Finding Neverland

Best British Actress – Kate Winslet – Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

Best British Actor – Paddy Considine – Dead Man’s Shoes

Best British Director – Matthew Vaughn – Layer Cake

Best British Film – Shaun Of The Dead

Outstanding Contribution To British Cinema – Working Title

Sony Ericsson Scene Of The Year – The Balloon Sequence – Enduring Love

Best Actress – Julie Delpy – Before Sunset

Best Actor – Matt Damon – The Bourne Supremacy

Inspiration Award – Pixar

Best Director – Sam Raimi – Spider-Man 2

Best Film – The Bourne Supremacy

Independent Spirit Award – Kevin Smith

Icon Of The Decade – Quentin Tarantino